Gender mainstreaming in the EU budget

Abstract

“Gender mainstreaming” means actively promoting equality between women and men at all stages and in all areas of policy- making and implementation. The EU has a treaty obligation to promote equality between women and men in all of its activities, which provides the basis for gender mainstreaming. In this audit, we assessed whether gender mainstreaming had been applied in the EU budget to promote equality between women and men from 2014 onwards. We concluded that the Commission had not yet lived up to its commitment to gender mainstreaming in the EU budget. We make recommendations for improving the Commission’s framework for supporting gender mainstreaming, and to increase the consideration given to gender equality in the EU’s budgeting. ECA special report pursuant to Article 287(4), second subparagraph, TFEU.